Page 74 of Charlotte
Lottie came around the table. “Good morning, Mr. Peterson.”
His eyes found hers, and a small line of ease appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Lottie.”
Mrs. Beck’s ribbon slid from her hand to the floor.
Mrs. Schulte stopped writing.
Mrs. Hanford looked as if she had witnessed a procedural irregularity.
Peterson seemed to realize what he had said in public. He lowered the books to the lending table with more care than necessary. “Returning these.”
“Both?”
“Aye.”
Tennyson lay on top. The botany volume beneath it was tied with a strip of clean cloth.
Lottie touched the knot. “Did the flower press properly?”
“Might need another day.”
“Then you should have kept it.”
He glanced toward the women by the shelf. “Thought best to return library property before it became town discussion.”
Mrs. Beck opened her mouth.
Cornelia reached out and took her basket of ribbon. “Beatrice, this blue has tangled.”
The distraction worked only because Mrs. Beck loved ribbon nearly as much as she loved romance.
Lottie kept her voice low. “You are allowed to borrow books even when people comment on it.”
“Allowed, yes.”
“Not willing?”
His left hand rested on the top book. He did not tap his fingers or fidget. Peterson did not waste movement that way. He simply stood with his hand over Tennyson as if returning it cost more than he meant to show.
“The men have work enough without making sport of books,” he said.
“Are they making sport of books?”
His answer came after a pause. “Not only books.”
There it was.
Lottie wanted to reach for the volume and push it back into his hands. She wanted to tell him the men in the logging camp did not get to decide what he read, what name he used, what tenderness he kept alive. She knew pushing him would not make courage. It would only make a corner.
Instead, she opened the ledger.
“Then I will mark them returned.”
His gaze lowered to the page.
The two entries sat there in his hand.
Peterson. Tennyson. Botany.
